David Orden (IFPRI) presented the key conclusions of his recent book (with D. Blandford, T. Josling and L. Brink) on WTO disciplines on agricultural support. He noted that WTO definitions could have a significant impact on the way (including the level) that the support was notified to the WTO. The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) could create a significant constraint on Norway’s domestic support, but little impact on Japan and the EU following their past policies changes. Finally, he said that the US level of support was highly dependent on prices.

David Laborde (IFPRI) said that trade was a source of welfare, cheap food, stable food supply and productivity gains, all elements that contributed to food security. In that regard, concluding the DDA would therefore have positive consequences (agriculture, but also trade facilitation). Export restrictions exacerbate price spikes and WTO rules should be tightened. Free trade is necessary to achieve food security as food security is necessary to achieve free trade.

Josef Schmidhuber underlined the drastic change in the market environment since 2007 and said that trade rules had to be adapted to this new context. Different countries suffered differently from the food price spike. He suggested that international agricultural organizations should work to better define what food insecurity is, better identify the causes of market supply shortage, tighten up the notification process, and create more market transparency.

Frank Von Tongeren (OECD) agreed with the previous panellists, especially on the need for WTO members to make further reductions of support in both developed and developing countries, the need to reorient the focus of current agricultural rules and the objective of diversifying food supply.

Dr Maximo Torero (IFPRI) noted that trade is necessary but not sufficient to ensure food security and welcomed the efforts made within the G-20 to improve transparency in agricultural trade information.